In Portugal Landlords Can't Evict Elderly

[Ben Leybovich]

I just read an article, which is not in English so I am not sharing, that the Parliament in Portugal mandated that landlords cannot evict elderly (65+) and/or handicapped  if they'd been renting the same dwelling for 15 years or more. Incomes in Portugal are stagnating, while rents have skyrocketed. Foreign investment, and in part AirBnB, has contributed.

As you can imagine, the socialist party is driving the bus on this. Is Spain next? Greece? How about Italy? France? 

[David Fernandez]

@Ben Leybovich, I’m from Spain and still have a few properties there (I mostly invest in the US now). I find even the most tenant friendly state/county/City in the US heaven for landlords when compared to Spain. 

It can take 2+ years to evict someone in Spain that is not paying rent. There are cases where someone gets in a vacant property, changes the locks, and it takes 2-3 years to evict them. Obviously, the owner of the property still needs to pay property taxes, insurance, utilities, etc. 

There are groups now that get into properties when the owners go on vacation (primary residences, not rentals) they come back and find that someone has change the locks of their house and can’t enter. They are asked to pay 5,000-10,000€ for them to leave or otherwise try to evict them and not have a place to live for ~2 years. Another option they have is to hire someone to get them out using borderline legal methods (this type of business is booming there now).